Against the better (terrible) judgment of its Rotten Tomatoes score, last Friday I headed out to see the newest installment into the DCU, Suicide Squad. Like most, I had been waiting for this flick since they casted the damn thing and nothing was going to stop me from seeing it on opening night. NOTHING. I shipped up to Boston, met up with a few friends who recently moved there, grabbed a subway to the theater (An AMC with ridiculously comfortable seats), filled up an obnoxiously big Icee* and stepped into the darkness of the movie house. (Full disclosure, this review/overview/rant may contain SPOILERS)

When the end credits started rolling I had a few things on my mind. First of which, the 2 hours and 3 minutes went be extremely fast. Not that I didn’t want it to end, because I think the plot ran it course to the correct outcome (more on that later), but because I didn’t feel fatigued after watching. It was a fun ride that didn’t lag or drag at any point. Part of that was the soundtrack.

The Suicide Squad soundtrack is exactly the 2nd best movie soundtrack I have ever heard. It’s currently sandwiched in-between Guardians of the Galaxy at #1 and The Hateful 8 at #3. A multitude of new pop, old rap, and everything in-between, was mixed in to create a soundscape that blended characters and scenes beautifully. It was exactly my kind of soundtrack. Every character’s origin had their own “theme song” which fit them to a T. Speaking of origin stories, lets talk a little more about the plot of Suicide Squad.

When going to see Suicide Squad, and movies like it, most people know they aren’t seeing something penned by Tarantino or Kubrick. The plot has holes, sure it does, let’s start with a man named “Killer Croc” who is a meta human who swims like a crocodile, has scales and eats people…BURN THIS MOVIE AT THE STAKE! Come on everyone, this is a superhero movie. As a massive comic fan, I am just excited to see my favorite characters jump off the pages. For all the Christopher Nolan Batman truthers who are going to come crawling out of the shadows and tell me: “But Space Ghost, The Dark Knight Trilogy was a triumph!”**. Look me in the eyes and tell me that Commissioner Gordon being the LAST person to find out who Batman was wasn’t the most farfetched thing about those movies and I will…….strongly disagree and definitely not slap you across the mouth. Anyway, what i’m trying to get at is you need to manage expectations for every movie you see. Go in with an open mind and full heart and you can’t lose. I think Michael Scott said that.

In short, I liked the movie. The characters were well portrayed and very well acted (I could use a hell of a lot more Will Smith in my comic book movies). Is it worthy of an Oscar? No. But who’s to decide that anyway. See it for yourself and let me know what you thought. (Twitter: @MattFromRI)

I give it 7.89485766352545758 MattStars (out of a perfect 10.5 MattStars)

– Matt aka The Space Ghost

*note to self: I am much too old for that much frozen sugar. A vicious headache followed immediately after consumption.

**It really was